Exactly twenty years ago the European Court of Human Rights found that the British Government had acted illegally in shooting dead three IRA members in Gibraltar, even though the court accepted that the government had a genuine belief that they were planning a bombing attack. Indeed the court accepted the victims were terrorists, and refused compensation to their families on those grounds. But the court refused to accept there was no possibility of foiling the plot through methods other than summary execution.
In the light of the decision that Operation Flavius contravened Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, it is difficult to understand how the government can claim its killing of British men in Syria, with no trial, is anything other than murder. I personally find it difficult to imagine technically how men journeying in a car in Syria were imminently able to instantly wreak havoc in the UK so that it was impossible to prevent by any method other than their execution without trial. The level of certainty required for that decision would involve sufficient knowledge of what was to happen in the UK to stop it here. If there was vagueness about what was actually to happen in the UK, there cannot have been the certainty about the threat claimed. It is a logical impasse.
Frankly in twenty years of experience working with British security services their level of accuracy (remember Iraqi WMD) was never that good. And everybody is fortunately now deeply sceptical about the continual claims by the security services that there are thousands of dedicated Islamic terrorists in the UK conducting hundreds of plots every year, and yet miraculously never actually managing to kill anybody.
Just in case anybody had not worked out yet that the Guardian is a disgraceful neo-con rag, it has an article by its “legal correspondent” Joshua Rozenberg, married to the even more rabid Zionist militarist Melanie Phillips (who still believes the Iraqi WMD exist, hidden in the bed of the Euphrates). Rozenberg assures us it is absolutely legal for the British government to kill us without trial if it wants. He even suggests the murdered Mr Khan would not object:
“If he was waging war on British troops and civilians, he can hardly complain the UK’s armed forces were one step ahead of him.”
Astonishingly for a lawyer, the disgraceful Rozenberg does not seem to notice that the opening “if” is rather important. “If Mr Jones was engaged in insurance fraud, he can hardly complain at being banged up for twenty years”, so according to Mr Rozenberg we can dispense with all that nonsense about trials and evidence and just take the government’s word for it. Not to mention that the government has now instituted summary execution without trial in a country that does not even have the death penalty.
As I have argued, it is not unusual for British people to go to fight abroad. There were British citizens in the Israeli Defence Forces participating in the massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza last year. Our neo-con governments of both blue and red Tories have positively encouraged the mercenary companies Executive Outcomes/Sandline/Aegis of Tony Buckingham and Tim Spicer. There are Britons fighting now in the Ukraine. We started by positively encouraging factions in the Syrian civil war, with the Saudis and CIA arming and training them and some of those factions helped constitute ISIL. There is no evidence at all that Islamic State had any interest in attacks in the UK until we started to attack it. (That is not to say it is not a very bad organisation and did not commit actions against UK citizens in its “Caliphate area”. But it did not threaten the UK).
For the government to claim the right to kill British people through sci-fi execution, based on highly unreliable secret intelligence and a secret declaration of legality, is so shocking I find it difficult to believe it is happening even as I type the words. Are we so cowed as to accept this?
“The murder of Alexander Litvinenko was OK in so far as the Russians believed him to be a threat but not OK in so far as the method used did risk innocent lives. 0-0 draw on that one.”
But really there is no evidence whatsoever, unless you believe the same secret services that claim the Syrian drone-strike victims were plotting an attack on the UK, that Russia was involved in the death of Litvinenko. It’s a home goal and Russia wins 1-0.
Me too Mary. I signed it. Who are the members of the Petitions’ Committee? Friends of Israel no doubt.
Alcyone – I am not sure if I understand your question at 9.36. Can you explain it in more detail.
Ishmael at 7.29: yes maybe nationality is for suckers as the ism which replaced religion as a tool of oppression, but still when push comes to shove we have to belong somewhere * and the idea of loyal dissent is a nice one is it not; knowing where you belong but having the confidence to dissent.
How do we know who we belong with when push comes to shove; tricky question that….for another day.
* unless we become a saint that is – then of course we belong everywhere and to everyone.
Seen as a traitor for criticizing Israel. The conditioning starts at a early age as the brain is quite
plastic and if there is no breakout before the age of forty two. Two words. No Hope.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42795.htm
Interestingly, although fighting in other people’s wars is popularly thought of as an activity related mostly to the Swiss, it’s not a new thing for Brits to fight abroad in other countries armies. There were plenty of British citizens in the Spanish Civil War (on both sides), plus earlier in the 19th century fighting on the side of the Greeks for independence against the Ottoman Empire (notably Lord Byron was killed doing just that) and also during the wars of independence in South America against Spain. There was even a British legion in Hitler’s army during WW2 called the Britische Freikorps der SS which wore a union flag on the sleeves of its feldgrau battle blouse to boot! Although it wasn’t a very large contingent of troops and was mostly filled by already converted Mosleyite nutters.
Dunchyou luv the smell of democracy? It smells a mixture of pig slop and fresh manure!
This the kind of selective application of the rules and regs by a bunch of self appointed or selected busy bodies set in judgment to game the system and then blame the populace for being lethargic and apathetic!
Just like the switch scam for utilities that were far more affordable when they were in our ownership before the “efficient private firms” took the lot for peanuts, and started to rip the lot us off with their extortionate tariffs and we got the blame for “not switching”!.
The motivation isn’t always ideological (e.g. like the evangelical Christians who volunteer to fight in the IDF). The pay in some of the oil rich gulf states’ armies – such as that of the Sultanate of Oman – is very favourable compared to what ex-service personnel below NCO rank might earn following a career in the armed forces in classist Britain.
Lord Of The Drones. by Heathcote Williams
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/25/the-lord-of-the-drones-by-heathcote-williams/
Unfortunately drones are like nuclear weapons John Spencer-Davis. Once invented they cannot be uninvented. So when Apocalypse Now becomes a reality, believe me nobody underground will survive. Look at the terrible toll taken on Julian Assange who can at least look out of and open a window, and that is after two or three years.
Hopefully if any human beings drag themselves out of the nuclear holocaust they might be on an island that escapes the total annihilation, I do not know, perhaps some wilderness nomads, tribes of the Amazon, who knows, but if a few do they will not have that knowledge to create nuclear weapons, that knowledge to split the atom, and if the vegetatation regenerates there might just be a chance that humankind did not wipe itself out in my generation. Don’t bank on it.
That would be a prerequisite for the “petitions’ committee”, in case the plebs manage to push forward any notions beyond their station!
Now go and start a petition to flog Muslims in the market places around the cournty every Saturday afternoon, soon you will get it passed as a law, and those carrying out the whipping would be classed as national heroes and given a medal for their services!
“My first laugh of the day Suhayl. I can’t remember ever feeling so gloomy as I do at the moment.” Mary.
I know, Mary, I’m sure a lot of us feel the same way. Deeply depressing, the whole damn thing.
Btw…not all Brits are citizens. They don’t all live in cities as the UK has many rural areas, too where they are known as villagers. Even inhabitants of urban areas are actually not citizens as such but townsfolk. A place must have a cathedral to be classed as a city in the UK. They are all, however, classed as subjects of the monarchy irrespective of whether they live in cities, towns or villages etc.
Strange how, following Cameron’s drone strike announcement yesterday, the press are filled with stories of ‘kill lists’ and further drone strikes, as though this is now the new normal…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11852303/Jihadi-John-tops-secret-kill-list-of-five-Isil-extremists.html
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/08/drones-uk-isis-members-jihadists-syria-kill-list-ministers
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3226045/Drone-strike-legal-d-says-Defence-Secretary-attacks-absurdity-ban-bombing-Syria.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jihadi-john-top-britains-kill-6406949
We live in very frightening times; but never forget, the ones who should be most frightened are the criminal vermin who are subverting our democracies.
Becky Cohen
08/09/2015 10:56pm
The idea of the Britisches Freikorps came from John Amery, brother of the Conservative MP and Minister Julian Amery. He was one of two British men hanged for treason after World War Two, the other being William Joyce (“Lord Haw Haw”), although there was considerable doubt about Joyce’s legal nationality.
John Amery was a committed anti-Communist and was indignant at the suggestion that he was an enemy of Britain: he saw the Soviet Union as a threat to Germany and Britain both. Inexplicably, he pleaded guilty to treason and was immediately sentenced to death by Mr Justice Humphreys.
There is no suggestion that Julian Amery shared his brother’s views.
Kind regards,
John
“hypocrisy is a positive because you only have hypocrisy where you have values.”
Because you only have hypocrisy where you have values, it does not follow that where you have hypocrisy, you possess values.
The proposition is sophistry.
“Drone technology will presumably not stay in Western hands forever more. When other countries start sending drones over to the West, what are Western leaders going to say?”
Drones rely on satellites, America controls the satellites.
Good point, Becky, at 11:09pm. We in the UK are indeed nearly all subjects. And this business of not publishing the Attorney General’s advice on drone strikes is typical of the endemic secrecy that defines the British state and the elite’s disrespect for the people. They know best. We are just plebs.
Fred
08/09/2015 11:19pm
Forever?
J
Do you recollect that user of exotic substances and cheerleader member of the skull and bones come selected potus one
chimpin chief Bu$h who used to keep score cards and a set of “villain cards” in his desk drawer and tick them along as and when they were liquidised with various destructive ordinance?How about the deck of cards?
I am not and never have been the Guardian’s legal correspondent. His name is Owen Bowcott. Your other comments about me are equally ill-informed.
Europeans have their own system and Russians have their own, Chinese are getting there. Satellites technology is no longer an exclusive science. Further Chinese have zapped a satellite hence setting up the stage for the destruction of any space asset in place, on demand.
Oh, good evening, Mr Rozenberg.
Perhaps you’d like to tell us why the trial of the facts in the case of Lord Janner is proceeding despite your learned legal opinion?
Kind regards,
John
Yes John. Drones are not going away. They are cost-effective and don’t experience casualties. Being so efficient makes them sanitary.
@John Spencer-Davis
Not many countries have the technology and resources to develop a system or launch a satellite. Those that do I think will keep it regional, if they started positioning satellites over Europe all hell would be let loose.
Joshua Rozenberg said:
Pretty generalised, sweeping statement, Won’t you expand on these points?
” Further Chinese have zapped a satellite hence setting up the stage for the destruction of any space asset in place, on demand.”
That’s right, we couldn’t use drones in Chinese territory without their permission.
We in the west have that capability too.
The Chinese used terrestrial assets to destroy the space asset targeted. The space has been weaponised for years, Russians had twenty millimeter cannons in the orbit way back in the sixties. since then there have been too many developments, and as ever all in secrecy of course.
“The Chinese used terrestrial assets to destroy the space asset targeted. The space has been weaponised for years, Russians had twenty millimeter cannons in the orbit way back in the sixties. since then there have been too many developments, and as ever all in secrecy of course.”
Iran brought down an American drone just by sending a plane to fly above it and jamming it’s signal to the satellites. They are useless against a developed country.
I recently re-heard the saying, ‘been down so long down worry me no more’. I Feel kinda like that, But it should bother me.
Thing is individual humans can’t process this kind of stuff emotionally. Not that i’m very responsible compared to some, but I still feel like there should be something one can say, or something to make things better. But it’s tragedy beyond that. And it can’t be undone.
Anyway here is a song about racism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdbLqOXmJ04 …It’s not nice, and this description/youtube comment is a good’n for the uninitiated.
“The song has nothing to do with Arabs, it’s an allegorical reference to Albert Camus’ novel The Stranger, where the protagonist Meursault kills an Arab on an Algerian beach for no apparent reason. Meursault, “The Stranger,” then reinterprets the event to diminish responsibility and protect himself from psychological harm. It’s about suppression and denial.”
Again not nice but fitting.
Very true Fred. The visions of automated wars may be some Dr. Strange Love’s wet dream but as it stands the technology is not delivering it, and still there is a need for the great unwashed to go and do the fighting and getting maimed and mutilated.
All the same though the civilians will be getting it worse than ever before, as the civilians death rates rise higher and higher due to the advances in the weapons systems,in a macabre trend.